


let's get fucked up and die (i'm speaking figuratively, of course)

by whyyesitscar



Category: Grey's Anatomy, Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, do i tag alex as alex or lexie this is v confusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 01:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18326285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whyyesitscar/pseuds/whyyesitscar
Summary: “Oh my god, Maggie,” you say when you can manage a breath, “oh my god, they named a hospital after me.” // (or: this is exactly the crossover you think it is)





	let's get fucked up and die (i'm speaking figuratively, of course)

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my google drive for waaaaaaaaay too long, but all thanks to captain marvel for kicking my writing inspiration into gear again. assume this exists in a murky season 11/12 grey's anatomy & season 2ish of supergirl where no one's dead and all of the queer ladies are still together. (fair warning: haven't watched grey's anatomy since S9 or supergirl since S2, so. take as many grains of salt as you need.)
> 
> lyrics from motion city soundtrack, please enjoy!

_sister soldier, you’ve been such a positive influence_  
_on my mental frame. if i could ever repay you i would,_  
_but i’m hard up for cash_  
_and my memory lacks initiative._

/

It’s Maggie who convinces you, and you really shouldn’t be surprised about that, but it takes your breath away just the same. You think part of that’s down to how she discovers your secret, soft fingertips ghosting over the bumps of scars you try to forget. You should have been prepared for the questions. Kara doesn’t know about these for a reason.

“Mission gone wrong?” she murmurs.

“Plane crash,” you eventually answer, hoping she won’t press. (She does. Of course she does.)

“I thought Kara saved you,” she says, and it’s been months since you told her but you feel a swoop of fear every time she reminds you that she knows who Supergirl is. Too many people know; that’s how you always feel. Sometimes you wonder if it would be easier if you didn’t know. (But who would be there for Kara, your mother asks in the back of your brain, and so you shake the thought from existence.)

“Different plane crash,” you clarify. “This one actually succeeded in crashing a few years ago.” If you keep talking she’ll know about it and connect the dots; you know the story went nationwide. An elite team of surgeons stranded in the forest for days on end; who wouldn’t be interested in a sob story like that? But Maggie is so good at pulling the truth out of you and you can’t seem to stop your lips from moving. “Kara doesn’t know.”

Maggie’s eyebrows almost shoot up into her hair. “Kara doesn’t know you were in a plane crash? And a pretty serious one, considering these scars. I thought you two didn’t really do secrets.”

“We don’t,” you sigh, “but this is...this is a lot. More than learning I work for the DEO. It’s—it’s complicated, Maggie.”

(It’s not complicated for professional reasons or even plane crash reasons. It’s complicated because it means so much to Kara, being your sister. You don’t know how to tell her you kind of have another one in Seattle. You think you’d rather tell her you killed Astra over and over again than admit the truth about Meredith.)

“Okay,” Maggie concedes. “I can let complicated be.”

You kiss her.

Meredith and Maggie would get along swimmingly. You kiss her until you stop thinking about it.

/

She figures it out three weeks later, on an otherwise normal Tuesday morning.

Maggie’s reading the paper—because she still reads the paper; of course she does—while you sip your coffee and try not to check your email before eight a.m. She’s buried in the science section, mouth full of toast and her brows furrowed intently, when she manages a reaction more than her usual scoffs.

“What, no crazy millennial gadget for you to demean today?”

She swallows her bite and pretends to throw the crust at you. “No, an old friend of mine is actually doing some pretty cool medical work with prosthetics.”

“Yeah? That is pretty cool; I wish they’d write nice things about me in the paper.”

“If you ever made the papers, your DEO career would be over.”

You shrug, pretending like it wouldn’t matter. “A little change of pace never hurt anyone.”

Maggie gives you a look (because she knows it would matter) and you give it right back until she leaves the table.

“I’m gonna call her.”

“Call who?”

“My awesome doctor friend.”

“I thought I was your awesome doctor friend.”

“You,” Maggie says as she looks for her phone, “are my _sexy_ doctor girlfriend. Big difference.”

“Alright, I guess I can let that one slide.”

“Yeah, you bett—Callie! Hey!”

Maggie doesn’t get thirty seconds into her phone call before you’ve choked on your coffee. You practically spit it back onto the table, letting the paper catch most of it. It soaks right onto the article Maggie was reading, all about the amazing innovations Drs. Callie Torres and Derek Shepherd are making with thought-controlled prosthetics.

You wipe your mouth and try to read the article before it gets too soggy—they got a call from the President; Callie did a TED Talk on it. Half of you wants to look it up because you miss her, and the other half remembers how awful she is at public speaking. You’re not sure if you can sit through that in one go.

“Hang on, I’ve gotta—Alex, are you okay?” Maggie pulls the phone away from her ear and looks at you with mostly concern and a little confusion.

“Yep, I’m gre—I’m great,” you say as a little more coffee spills out of your mouth.

“Okay, you know what, Callie? I’m gonna call you back. We’ll figure out a time to visit, okay? It’s been too long.”

Maggie hangs up and you look at her sheepishly, letting her mop up your chin.

“I’ve seen you put away more than a few beers, Danvers; I know you didn’t forget how to drink.”

You laugh nervously and you’re not sure if this laugh feels like Kara or Lexie. “You know, I’m just—I’m just tired. Just a typical case of the Tuesdays, right? No big; I’ll clean it up.”

“Alex.”

“I’ll get more paper towels. Or a mop? Do you have a mop?”

“Alex.”

“Swiffer, maybe. No one has mops these days.”

“Alex.”

“Yeah?”

“Sit down. Forget about the coffee.”

“It’s gonna stain…”

Maggie smiles and takes your hand. “What’s up? What’s got you spooked?”

You scoff. “What, spooked? I’m not—I’m not spooked.”

“Don’t shut me out, Alex; we’ve been through too much for that.”

“I’m not trying to shut you out, it’s just that this is a longer story than we have time for.”

“What, you still think I’m gonna bail on you?” Maggie laughs and it works; she’s so charming and you’re incapable of not laughing with her, but still. This is a huge, gigantic, very big thing that you haven’t thought about in a while. Laughter can only do so much.

“Let’s go away for a little,” she suggests instead, playing with your fingers. “We’ll go up north, take a tour of coffeeshops. You can have a few days to relax and I can introduce you to my friend. You’ll like her, I promise. She’s a pretty badass doctor.”

“She is.”

“Yeah, head of orthopedic surgery at Grey Sloan Memorial in Seattle.”

“Sorry, where?”

“Grey Sloan Mem—”

Laughter can do a lot, it turns out. Laughter can do a lot and so much of it is coming out of you right now, and _that_ you can definitely thank Meredith for.

“Oh my god, Maggie,” you say when you can manage a breath, “oh my god, they named a hospital after me.”

Maggie laughs with you until you cry.

/

The day you walk into Seattle Grace is on the shortlist of the most memorable days of your life. For a multitude of reasons, only one of which is Meredith Grey. It’s the most you’ve ever felt at one time that had nothing to do with Kara, except it kind of has a little to do with Kara because everything in your life does. You’re lying to everyone you love, and you’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t admit that it sort of excited you. You’re fresh out of med school and younger than everyone else because you finished undergrad early and the FBI snatched you up fast. You’re here to fulfill your residency, sure, but you’ve got a list of names to keep an eye on in your lab coat pocket. You’re acutely aware of how it rustles every time you take a step.

Thatcher Grey is your father, you have to keep telling yourself. Thatcher Grey is your father and you are his daughter and you don’t know Kara Danvers (even though you do) and you’re here to become a doctor and stop bad guys and meet your fake half-sister.

It’s mostly a noble cause.

.

(You grew up with Kara and she was a lot, but somehow Seattle feels like more. No one is weighing you against an alien you can’t ever best, but you can’t stop telling them to hold you to high standards anyway. You rattle off things about Lexie Grey that feel like an identity until you’re pretty sure you’ve willed yourself to have an actual photographic memory.

You wonder if Kara can do that.)

.

You _like_ Seattle Grace, when you really stop to think about it. You like its doctors and patients and people who accept you as a separate person, even if that person is a bastard little sister. You find it so easy to be a little sister, to soften a little and let someone else mold you. It’s comforting. Kara doesn’t mean to, but she looms.

Meredith is a good person underneath all the gristle, and you find it easy to believe the lie you’re telling her. As adaptable as you are, and for as many details as you’ve memorized about this cover, you can’t fake a connection. You’re a better person already for having met Meredith Grey, and you hope that she’d think the same even if she found out the truth.

You don’t regret anything until the plane crashes.

/

“Alex, that’s—”

“Complicated, I know. I told you.”

“Are you telling me that FBI badge you flash sometimes is _real_?”

You shake your head and sigh. “No.” This one really is a story for another day, not only because Maggie’s going to need a few weeks to process the one you’ve just told her. “I left the FBI on bad terms; the badges only have that capability because of the DEO’s privacy regulations. J’onn had to fight that one for a long time, and I’m pretty sure I was the big battle.”

“Jesus.” Maggie puffs up her cheeks and lets them out noisily. “Jeez, Alex. I thought I had some pretty good deep cover stories, but...jeez.”

“I know.”

The day has barely started. You feel like it should be over by now, because surely that story took hours to tell. Something that was such a big part of your life can’t possibly be summed up in twenty six minutes (until it can). Maggie’s already called into work and probably texted J’onn for you, too. She does that sometimes, when you’re not looking. You frown and tell her to stop but those are some of your favorite days.

“Do you keep up with her?” she softly pries. That’s kind of how Maggie does everything.

“I can’t, Maggie. She thinks I’m dead.”

“No, I mean—haven’t you ever looked her up? She’s a famous doctor; I bet she has at least a few paragraphs on Wikipedia.”

You swallow the tears that begin to well. “I don’t—” You shake your head again, pacing with your hands on your hips. If only that was where the coping could stop.

“Don’t wanna relive the crash?” Maggie suggests.

“Sure,” you nod.

(— _want to know what I’m missing_ , is how you intended to end that sentence. But there are some things that just get to stay with you no matter what.)

“It’s been a few years.” Maggie doesn’t get a rise out of you, even though you know she’s trying to. “Maybe it’s okay now. To see her, I mean.”

You wipe your eyes, rub at your cheeks, run a hand through your hair. Anything to distract you from answering. When you turn around, Maggie’s still there, just waiting. She relieves you more than anyone you know.

“Can we go bowling?” you say, throwing up your hands. “Or do anything just really, _really_ dumb and meaningless?”

Maggie smiles dimples-first. “Sure, Danvers.”

/

Later that night, she pries again and this time you fold for good.

You’re sleeping and she’s not, which isn’t how things usually go, but you can never seem to make it through the night anymore. So you wake up at two and decide to grab a glass of water, but Maggie is there next to you with her laptop, brightness turned down one notch past ‘comfortably readable’. You quickly glance over at her screen and find her a few tabs deep into Wikipedia.

“Of _course_ she went to Dartmouth,” Maggie mumbles. “Don’t you know any stupid women, Danvers?”

“You really want me to answer that?”

Maggie scoffs, then she kisses you. “Don’t be difficult.”

“If I’m ever difficult, it’s your fault.”

“She’s got kids,” Maggie says, and your heart sinks. “You deserve to meet them.”

You miss Zola more than you can explain, with bigger feelings than you thought you could feel. You’ve thought about asking J’onn, in your sadder moments, if it ever gets easier; if the drill ever stops going deeper. He’d say no, but he might say it in a way that feels like yes. You always stop yourself, just when it’s on the tip of your tongue. J’onn knows the story without you having to rehash it but he doesn’t know all the details. You don’t think you can tell him about Zola without cracking, so you just don’t give yourself the opportunity.

“More than one?” you finally say.

“Three.”

“Three,” you breathe, and there it is. A sliver now, sure, but it’ll be a fissure one day. You might as well have something to fill it with.

“Found a cheap flight next month.”

You kiss Maggie for a long time.

“Okay.”

/

“Okay, I can’t do this.”

“Alex…”

“It’s been way too long, this is super weird; I can’t do it! They’re gonna be really mad at me.”

“No they won’t; they love you.”

“Ohh, that’s what you think, but you don’t know them like I do.”

“I know Callie; I’ve known Callie for more than ten years.”

“Callie is gonna punch me, Maggie.”

Maggie pauses for a moment. “Okay, fair. But you can hit her back now; you’re really good at it.”

That thought is enough to calm you—the idea that you’re a trained agent, that you know how to react and adapt and exist in traumatic situations, of which this is a very big one. You stop pacing long enough for Maggie to look hopeful.

“Okay,” she says very softly, like she’s speaking to a spooked animal, “I’m gonna knock on the door now.”

“Yep.”

“You’re ready?”

“Definitely ready.” You flutter a weak salute near your forehead and then immediately regret it.

“Okay.” Maggie knocks and the fear is back again; you’re not ready and you’ll never be ready but there are footsteps on the other side of the door, and so you do the only thing you can when you’re standing on a porch and there’s nowhere to hide.

You turn around and look at the other side of the street.

“Maggie!”

Callie sounds happy and surprised and so very much the same. You have to fight against crying because you hadn’t realized until now just how long it’s been, just how long you’ve missed Meredith and also everyone else who isn’t Meredith. You miss Mark and George, all of the people you can’t have back and more of the ones you can.

“It’s early and it’s Thursday; I thought you weren’t getting in ‘til the weekend.”

“Yeah, uh, long story,” Maggie stammers, “we thought it was probably best if we kind of took it in stages instead of overwhelming everyone at once.”

“Right, ‘we’—so this back has a name,” Callie teases.

You can feel her eyes on you and you know what she looks like—not just what she used to look like but the expression she’s making, that bewildered smirk you saw so often when there was a you and Callie and Mark.

She’s standing five feet from you and you severely, _severely_ miss Callie Torres.

“Yep, um, Callie, this is Alex; Alex, Callie…”

You turn around to save Maggie from any further awkwardness and there’s the smirk you were expecting, falling fast from her lips.

“Oh my god,” she blurts.

You give a pathetic wave. “Hey, Callie.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” she repeats, and this time you see tears well up, and you can’t just let Callie cry on a stoop by herself, so.

“Okay, let’s go inside,” Maggie mediates, steering both of you into the house.

“Callie, did you seriously wake up first and not start making any coffee?” Arizona’s voice floats in from around the corner and your stomach sinks even more, and this time you look at Callie on purpose because anything is better than facing Arizona when the last thing you remember about her is how loud she can scream.

Arizona stops when you’re all in the same room and you can’t help the anguished “fuck” that comes out of your mouth once you see her. You know Mark’s dead and you’ve dealt with the trauma of your own fake death. But it’s Arizona’s leg that does you in.

“You know what, this was a bad idea,” you flake, backing up to the door. “We can do this later when you guys aren’t getting ready for work or maybe we don’t have to do it at all…”

“Are you kidding me?” Arizona scoffs. “You let us believe you’re dead and your immediate instinct is to run away?”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, “for everything. I know there’s so much more to say but I don’t know how to say it.”

“Mark died, Lexie. He said he loved you while you were crushed under a plane and then he died.”

“I know.”

“How did you even survive that? Who found you? They had to have snatched you up pretty quickly and without any of us noticing. Why didn’t they rescue us, too? Where did they take you if you didn’t come back to Seattle? Did you know we had a fune—”

Callie cuts off Arizona’s anger with a hug, but she isn’t hugging her wife. Her arms are warm and strong around you even as she cries on your shoulder. “We’re furious with you,” she whispers, “but also so, _so_ fucking glad you’re alive.”

You laugh in spite of the dread in your chest. Even after five years she still smells the same, and you tell her so.

“Kinda creepy, Little Grey.”

You break, but you’ve never been happier about it.

/

Conversation is halted as Callie and Arizona get Sofia ready for school. There’s something comforting about the way they ignore you, the fact that they can put aside your emotional bomb and go about their regular morning routine. You and Maggie wouldn’t be able to do it, were the situation reversed; you would be too flustered and Maggie would spend all of her energy trying to calm you down. That’s exactly what her hand on your constantly-bouncing knee is doing right now.

Callie has an early surgery so she can’t stay, but Arizona does. You wish it were the other way around (you wish a lot of things). She sits across from you at a table that feels too big for only three, and she waits.

“I don’t know where to start,” you eventually say.

“That makes two of us.”

It takes a moment to sink in why this Arizona feels more intimidating, feels intimidating at _all_ , and then it hits—there aren’t any tears on her cheeks. You wonder just how much that crash changed her.

“I wanted to come back, I—”

“Don’t,” she warns. “Who even are you, Lexie?”

You sigh and swallow the lump in your throat. Maggie’s fingers are linked with yours; her hand presses firmly into your leg as you explain yourself. You sift out the parts of yourself that are Alex and the parts that are Lexie and you wish it were more balanced, for Arizona’s sake. You wish you had more Lexie in you for everyone in Seattle. But you owe them truth even if it isn’t what they want to hear.

Arizona shakes her head more than once. Her leg, the prosthetic one, has started to bounce and her mouth is as thin as you’ve ever seen it. You think, not for the first time, that maybe this was a truly terrible idea. Maybe not knowing spared them pain, and that was enough.

(And then you watch as her fingers twitch on the table, the way she stops her hand from reaching yours.

This wasn’t a great idea. But it might be good.)

“I don’t think I can call you Alex,” Arizona says when you stop talking.

“No, yeah, that’s fine; I don’t mind.”

“You know, it just might get confusing because...Alex.”

“Oh. Right.” Realization dawns. “Oh, shit.”

That finally gets Arizona to crack a smile; you think she might have even laughed. “Did you always swear this much?”

“I tried not to,” you admit sheepishly, “but I was always thinking it.”

“This is gonna take a while for me to process,” she explains. You wonder if Arizona and Maggie would have found a way to be friends if Callie hadn’t come along first, because there are similarities you hadn’t noticed until now. Perhaps that’s part of what drew you to Maggie—were you seeking out the calming presence you missed? Were you trying to hold onto having such a comforting friend? Even in her confusion, Arizona finds a way to stabilize things.

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” you say, waving a placating hand. “I’ll be...here. Or whatever, you know, whatever you need me to be.”

“God, there are some things about you that haven’t changed at all.” For a moment, Arizona’s eyes are far away and heavy. You haven’t even scratched the surface on all the things the two of you need to talk about. But it’s nice, for now—to be talking.

“Anway,” she pivots, “ _so_ good to see you, Maggie! It’s been too long; catch me up on everything.”

You rest your cheek in your hand and smile, letting them talk like the old friends they are. You almost ignore the buzz from your pocket, but it might be Kara.

(It isn’t.)

 _**[8:45 am]**  
_ _maggie gave me your number while you were_  
_talking with Arizona. i don’t have time to talk but_

_how gay are you now?_

_**[8:46 am]**  
_ _like, on a scale of 1 to gay_

Things might just be alright.

/

You take some time after that. None of you can really agree the best way to approach Meredith; Arizona thinks you should wait, Callie thinks you should just show up at the hospital, and Maggie doesn’t even know her. Once again, you kind of just want to run away.

But you know the band-aid is better pulled than festering, so you resolve to go to the hospital once Meredith starts her shift. She overlaps with Callie by an hour, and Callie has so graciously (albeit reluctantly) agreed to sneak you in before anyone else from your past can spot you.

Until then, however, you plan to lie with Maggie in the guest room and look at her until you fall asleep.

“How you doing?” she asks quietly.

You sigh. “Well, different than I thought I’d be. I guess better? Is it better if it’s not worse?”

“I think so,” Maggie smiles. “I think you’re doing really great, Alex; I can’t imagine the kind of strength it takes to come back here.”

“Yeah, well. Could have done it sooner,” you shrug.

“But you’re here now.”

“Yeah. Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“You don’t want me to come with tonight.”

“Is that bad?”

“It isn’t anything but what you want, Alex. My only objective here is to spend time with my friends and support you however you need me to. I’m following you.”

You kiss her because everything is full—your heart full of Maggie; your head, Meredith. You kiss her because words aren’t enough; because you don’t know what you’d say even if they were. Just because.

“I might not be back until way late,” you whisper.

“Alex, you can—”

“I know, but still. It might take a while.”

Maggie’s hand finds yours between your bodies, warm and solid.

“I’ll be here.”

/

Callie is waiting for you when Arizona drops you off. She immediately throws you a lab coat and guides you to a door off one of the stairwells. Between the coat and your hair, you think that might be good enough to fool a passing glance, if you walk quickly.

Callie practically runs.

“I told her I wanted to talk in my office,” she says once you get there, closing the blinds. “Took a bit of convincing but I made it seem like it was a logistics thing with the kids; you know, carpooling and snacks and stuff…”

“Oh my god, you carpool? Are you guys actually friends now; do you organize play dates—”

“Hey.” She whirls around, finger pointed and eyes stern, but there’s no real sting. You can see the smile waiting in her cheeks. “You definitely haven’t earned jokes yet.”

“Okay, okay.” You hold your hands up in defeat. “You seem stressed though; did you pack any carrot sticks in your lunchbox?”

“Callie, I really couldn’t care less who drives the kids on Thursday,” Meredith huffs as she opens the door. You can’t even manage a stupid wave this time; it physically hurts to see her.

She waits ten seconds before turning around and walking right out again.

Callie opens a drawer in her desk as you puff out a shaky breath. She has at least seven different ziploc bags of pretzel sticks, each filled to varying capacities. She opens one bag and sticks two pretzels on either side of her mouth, like a walrus, before offering the bag to you.

“About how you thought that would go?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah.”

/

You decide to go find her yourself, after a few minutes. She’ll never make her way back to Callie’s office on her own, and Callie is leaving anyway. You can’t hide forever, not now that you’ve seen her.

As soon as you step into the hallway, the hospital becomes an obstacle course. You don’t know where she hides now—Cristina is in Switzerland, Alex moved onto a private practice, George and Izzie are gone. Does she have a favorite empty on-call room? Does she hang out in dermatology? You’ve missed more than you realized.

Eventually you bite the bullet and find a nurse’s station, making sure to talk to someone you definitely don’t recognize. They don’t really have any answers, other than to point you in vague directions, until a voice chimes in from your right.

“Sometimes she lurks in the tunnels,” a woman says. You can only assume she’s an intern because— _god_ , had you all looked that young?

“Still?”

The intern shrugs. “It’s a good place to clear your head.”

“Yeah, I remember. Thanks.”

You give a wave and jog off. It is, of course, on the other side of the hospital, but you aren’t a secret agent for nothing.

/

“Who ratted me out?”

You sit down next to her, as close as you dare. “An intern, I think. Didn’t catch her name.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

Meredith has an enormous capacity for silence. It’s overwhelming and outstandingly unsettling, but you take it.

“So, how long have you been not-dead?”

“Oh, well, about as long as you all thought I was dead, I guess.”

“Jeez, Lexie.”

You laugh in spite of yourself. “Yeah, I’m not—I’m not Lexie, I’m not Thatcher’s daughter, I’m not—wow, that was not how I wanted to start this, um. I’m really sorry I haven’t come back before now, there was just never a good time and I didn’t know how you’d react and I didn’t know how _I’d_ react—and I know that should be, like, way down on my list of concerns but you’re scary, you know; this whole thing is—I fucked up.”

Meredith sounds exactly the same when she laughs, and for a moment you forget to breathe.

“Boy, that came right back,” you chuckle. (She thinks you mean Lexie, and you do, but she doesn’t know what Lexie means.)

“Cristina isn’t here anymore which means I’m at a handicap for dealing with this, which means that the only way I can deal with this is through lots and lots of liquor.”

“Your shift just started,” you frown.

“Wait for me at Joe’s.”

“Will you show up?”

Meredith gets up and walks away without looking back. “I guess we’ll see.”

/

She doesn’t, and you stay until the bar closes. You take a moment outside, breathe in the dark morning air, and head back to the hospital. Headlights turn on immediately when you step into the parking lot.

Meredith hands you a coffee as you get in. The seat warmer is going and the coffee is cold. You’re touched, really.

“So you’re not my sister, huh. Did you know I have another one now?”

“What?”

“Yeah, this keeps happening to me. You just keep showing up in my hospital and telling me we’re related. Maggie never hit on Derek, though.”

“I…”

“I should probably ask her. If she really is my sister, I mean, because apparently sometimes people aren’t.”

“Your sister’s name is Maggie?”

“So?”

“It’s nothing, it’s just that’s my girlfriend’s name— _god_ , this is just…is there whiskey in this coffee? Or vodka, or—”

“Rum in the backseat.”

“Great.”

You climb over your chair with no grace at all, flailing with one hand while the other prevents you from falling. Meredith leans to avoid your foot in her face. You’re a lot closer than you’d imagined you would be at this point.

The bottle opens with a soft pop and Meredith pours each of you a healthy portion. You sip carefully while she shoots it back.

“I am so angry with you,” she sighs. “And I can’t decide if I want to hug you or punch you in the mouth. Derek and I got married, I have two kids you don’t know, and you have a girlfriend?”

“Oh yeah, um—surprise! One of many, I guess.” It’s not the most surprising thing about you, not by a longshot, but you suppose that it might be, for Meredith. The woman was shot and blown up; she’ll probably handle aliens and superheroes just fine, if she lets you talk about them.

“I wish I was in bed right now.”

“I missed you,” you blurt.

Meredith looks at you, longer than a few seconds for the first time in five years. She looks just about as wrecked as you feel. If you had a time machine you’d use it, to start from your new beginning and make sure Kara and Meredith knew about each other all along; and maybe Kara would have flown you occasionally to Seattle so you could say hi to Meredith and Derek and Zola and those two other kids you don’t know but _could_ know. She would be a hit with them, Kara and Supergirl, and on the flight home you could talk about secret identities because you _know_. If there were a way to redo the last five years, you’d craft a space where Alex and Lexie could coexist. Meredith would like them both, you hope.

You’re so glad you met her.

She sniffles and puts her coffee in the cupholder. Her fingers shake as she undoes her seatbelt and reclines her seat back as far as it will go. You hold onto your cup, but you follow suit.

The night is calm, the breeze punctuated only occasionally by the hoot of an owl. Still, it’s louder than the inside of the car.

“I missed you,” you repeat, “and I love you.”

Meredith clasps your hand sometime before you both fall asleep.


End file.
